Daughters Rising

Are You Unfairly Blaming Mom ? – Here’s How To Tell

by Katherine Fabrizio

Do daughters revel in their anger towards their difficult mothers? Are they just too sensitive? 

Do they enjoy blaming mom? If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother. Although it might look this way on the surface, in my 30 years as a psychotherapist, I find quite the opposite is true.

 I find most daughters want to feel love from and towards their mothers. They desperately want to believe their mothers are capable of giving them that love. Especially daughters of Narcissistic or Difficult mothers long to feel the love and approval, which often is just out of reach. Blaming mom, truly blaming mom is the last resort for daughters of limited/damaged mothers.

It is easier to blame themselves. Here’s why daughters are more likely to blame themselves rather than blame their mother-

If they blame themselves and work to be better ( whatever that means), then at least there is hope for getting the mothering they need. They operate under the illusion that if only they were good enough, then mom would feel okay enough footing to give them the love and acceptance they long for.

When they don’t get that love, they decide that they are unlovable. They carry that shame with them throughout their lives.

Watch below to see what I mean- 

If this is your story- you work so hard for mom to be happy with you. Then you spiral down into feelings of resentment and anger as you drown in doubt that you will ever be good enough for mom. You don’t want to feel angry and resentful. To feel this angry hurts your heart and wears you down. It is exhausting and erodes your self-confidence.

So many daughters trapped in the role of the “Good daughter” keep trying to be good for mom in hopes that she will approve of them.

Why do daughters cling to the idea of an all-loving mother even though this runs contrary to her experience?  

 A part of us holds out mother love as a guarantee, a right, a law of the universe. Despite evidence to the contrary, this mythology persists. We cling to it. We insist it is true. It hurts too much to give up on the cultural ideal.

As a result, the good daughter feels unlovable if she doesn’t experience that love from mom.  You are neurologically programmed to make it work, no matter who your mother is or what her problems are. Because you start as dependent on Mom as a young child, you will twist yourself into a pretzel to create some sort of attachment to get what you need or an approximation thereof.

But the truth is….mothers are only people. People who have had disappointments and injuries of their own.

People who, many times, have lost touch with what is best about them. Some are cruel, deeply flawed, and pass down unspeakable harm. Some are slightly difficult, never take ownership of their flaws or let you down in ways that are hard to get over.

You may ask yourself, am I doomed? I would argue no, you are not doomed. However, if you are like me and many I have counseled, I’d say there are two traps you are in danger of falling into.

1) Force yourself to be grateful for what you got from mom.

2) Stand angry, accusatory, and feel forever broken.

Neither stance is helpful, and here is why- One keeps you stuck in denial, and the other keeps you stuck in anger.

Here’s how this works-

1. Deny that mom is hurting you and force yourself to focus on the positive. She is your mother, after all. By making her right when she is hurting you and making you wrong – you protect mom at your expense.

The problems with this are two-fold.

A) You repress your feelings. They don’t go away.  As the dysfunction continues, you don’t get closer to mom, only more enmeshed.

B)  What you don’t pass back, you pass on… acting in ways towards your own daughter that hurt her while you can’t see it. And what you can’t see, you can’t change.

2. Stay stuck in anger. Gather up evidence of your mother’s wrongdoing so that you will feel right by making her wrong.  Blame all of your life’s problems on her and never move past the feeling of being a victim. You need her to be wrong for you to feel that you are right.

You can’t work through the feelings if you deny them or remain a victim of them.

So what can you do?

There is a 3rd way.

This is the conscious way. Your grief and disappointment around what you didn’t get from mom can serve as a portal to an expanded consciousness. By accepting that mom is human and thus prone to being flawed herself – you can move into an adult conscious stance with her and, more importantly, with yourself. You can start taking care of yourself and living your life to the fullest.  By facing the upsetting emotions, they stop controlling you. Consciousness is power.

In fact, you can empower yourself by making conscious decisions about what to do with this grief you didn’t choose to feel.

Although this may at first seem counterintuitive, there is a way in which you can turn the feeling of being a victim of your difficult mother into conscious awareness that makes you a more compassionate and empowered person. You tap into the vulnerability that makes us all connected and the kindness that heals us.

But don’t stop there. After facing the feelings you have about your upsetting relationship with your mother, use that energy to propel yourself into adulthood. Taking an adult position with your mother is neither the blame position nor the doormat position.  It is the mature position.

As you work to become aware of ways you have been harmed, set healthy boundaries, and heal your heart, you elevate your consciousness, move through the stuck feelings, and develop in yourself powers you never knew were there. When it comes to your mother, you are only a victim or a doormat if you choose to stay one.

Access all of the information here on this site-  Arm yourself with the psychological knowledge available to you here, and create inner resolve to take your life back. If you need one-on-one help, contact me here. 

To find out if you are trapped in the Good Daughter role- go here.

Find your voice. Raise Awareness. Tweet It Out.

In my experience, I find most daughters want to feel love from and towards their mothers. They desperately want to believe their mothers are capable of giving them that love. Click To Tweet But the truth is....mothers are only people. People who have had disappointments and injuries of their own. Click To Tweet By accepting that mom is human and thus prone to being flawed herself - you can move into an adult conscious stance with her and more importantly with yourself. Click To Tweet When it comes to your mother, you are only a victim or a doormat if you choose to stay one. Click To Tweet

Audio-

DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE "GOOD DAUGHTER" SYNDROME?

Do you have a Narcissistic or Difficult Mother?
Are you the "Good Daughter"? The Rebel? or The Lucky One?
Take the quiz and find out!

Take the quiz!

 

 

Being Good For Mom Can Be Bad For Her Grown Daughter

by Katherine Fabrizio

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When is “good for mom” bad for you?

Do you work hard to be good for mom, make mom look good or make sure mom is good with you?

Do you seek her approval yet secretly wonder if this is in your best interest? You may feel inadequate, struggle with self-doubt, and not know exactly why?

Could it be that your mother relates to you in a toxic way that undermines your confidence and self-esteem you are so used to it – you can’t see it?

It may seem normal to you that you second guess your every decision and apologize constantly. You aren’t quite sure where you end, and your mother begins. You may be so used to living this way you aren’t even aware that life could feel any different.

What drives a toxic mother/daughter relationship? Underneath many a demanding or controlling mother’s facade is an insecure person who worries she will be found out.  Or the flip side of the same coin,  mom may be a meek and mild wounded mother who isn’t outwardly critical but drags her daughter down in more subtle ways.

Narcissism/Borderline/Histrionic personality disorders or traits of these disorders can be overt or covert. At the root of all of the personality disorders and traits is a desperate insecurity that drives mom to act in destructive ways. 

Good for mom/bad for you works like this-

Deep down, a mother who has little self-worth needs her attuned daughter to boost her sense of self. The daughter, in the role of the “good daughter,” picks this up at the unconscious level. She experiences herself as an extension of mom and without being fully conscious of why she works at being “good” for mom. Many times the “good daughter” knows, or suspects, her difficult mother is narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, depressed, or codependent. What she does knows for sure, however, is that she is very attuned to the effect she has on her mother.

Many a difficult mother plays on the Good Daughter’s eagerness to please. The daughter’s childlike self-has a very hard time telling mom things she knows mom doesn’t want to hear. Even adult daughters have an almost 6th sense of how mom is feeling about herself and may sacrifice themselves for their mother’s well-being by letting mom run roughshod over her boundaries or put mom’s needs first.

Here are–3 signs you are being good for mom at your own expense. 

1) You know the phrase all too well, ” If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” You will do just about anything to keep mom happy. Even if it means making you, your husband, partner or children unhappy.  As much as you hate to admit it, making mom happy comes first.

2) You try extra hard to be “good” for mom. You are hyper-aware of how your actions make your mother look to others. You let this dictate much of what you do and say.

3) You run all of your major life decisions by mom first. If she doesn’t think you should take the job, marry the man, change your hairstyle, you second-guess yourself. Mom’s opinions matter way more than they should.

 

What’s wrong with this?

When a daughter, in the role of the “good daughter,” feels she owes mom her happiness, neither party is served. This cycle can be insidious and fueled by guilt such that many a daughter is unaware that her life has been hijacked by mom’s problems, her insecurities. The Good Daughter buys into the unconscious fantasy that says if she is good enough mom will be O.K. The problem is…she may spend a lifetime, waste a lifetime, trying to be good enough for mom.

And her own daughter will suffer.

Because she is so tied to being good for mom, the adult daughter of the difficult mother has a hard time being an effective mom to her own daughter. She doesn’t know where to set limits with her daughter or how to model valuing herself. Her daughter may see her as a doormat or experience her as chronically stressed and unhappy.

Also trying to make mom happy doesn’t work on an ongoing basis. It can’t work because change, like happiness, is an inside job. You cannot GIVE your mother self-worth.

What can you do?

You can learn how to get out of the good daughter traps set for you. You can learn how to set healthy boundaries, tap into your feminine power, rewire your brain, and parent your own daughter from a place of confidence. There are patterns that are not serving you, once realized, can be healed. By clearing up this toxicity in your relationship with your own mother you supercharge your ability to parent your own daughter.  One impacts the other in powerful ways.

When will you say enough? “I want to clear away the blocks that keep me from being the best mother I can be. The cycle of shame, guilt, and self-doubt stops here.”

Find out if you are trapped in the Good Daughter Syndrome -go here.

Find Your Voice. Raise Awareness. Tweet It Out.

It may seem normal to you that you second guess your every decision and apologize constantly. You aren't quite sure where you end, and your mother begins. Click To Tweet Being Good For Mom Can Be Bad For Her Grown Daughter Click To Tweet You cannot GIVE your mother self-worth. Click To Tweet By clearing up this toxicity in your relationship with your own mother you supercharge your ability to parent your own daughter. One impacts the other in powerful ways. Click To Tweet

 

 

 

 

Audio-

DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE "GOOD DAUGHTER" SYNDROME?

Do you have a Narcissistic or Difficult Mother?
Are you the "Good Daughter"? The Rebel? or The Lucky One?
Take the quiz and find out!

Take the quiz!

Difficult Mom? The Secret To Letting Go & Moving On

by Katherine Fabrizio

Can your mother empathize with you? Can she get past her defensiveness and put herself in your place? What if the answer is no? What if she doesn’t get you and never will. How do you let go of the hope that she will and move on with your life? What if you need to get past this, claim your life for yourself and parent your daughter.

First of all -this can be hard, very hard. Those of us who have traveled this road can tell you, there are are some things that don’t get better just because you continue to try.  Trying to get a mother understanding when it isn’t in the cards is one of those. There comes a time when you need to be your own witness.

As hard as this is, it may be the only way to freedom. Trapped in the role of the “good daughter” of your difficult mother, you bear the mark of your mother’s pain in this way- You have put your mother’s needs ahead of your own. In the relationship dynamic, you had no choice. To end this cycle, you might need to face the fact that justice is only going to come from you, and that will have to be enough.

The little girl in you wants for mom to understand and approve of you. You have worked so hard to be good for mom. But what if you need for her to understand that she is hurting you and she just can’t give you that one? Because of her limitations, she can’t put herself in your shoes and see things from your perspective. Some mothers just can’t.  And you have your own little girl looking at you…needing you. She needs you to be there for her. It is decision time.

At some point, the only relevant question becomes whether or not you are going to spend a lifetime trying to be heard and seen by someone who just can’t see you or hear you. If you’ve talked yourself blue in the face and find yourself always on the defensive, chances are there isn’t anyone home- psychologically speaking. At least not enough of reflective self to take in what you have to say. Whether she is narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, depressed, addicted, a toxic combo or you have simply hit a hot-button issue, she might be incapable of taking in what you have to say.

How do I know? I’ve heard many a daughter, trapped in the role of the Good Daughter on my therapy couch describe this same scenario over and over. Unconsciously, you blame yourself and stay tied to a mother who can’t truly empathize with you falsely thinking if you could only get it right then mom will understand and accept you.

If mom can’t empathize with you, you cannot experience the understanding you hungry for. So, one more explanation that falls on deaf ears is one too many. Let me save you some time, trouble and possible therapy dollars. As difficult as it is, at some point, you are better off cutting your losses, grieving and moving on. Calmly, peacefully and thoughtfully, but definitively.

To continue in the exhausting exercise of explaining yourself reaches a point of diminishing returns.No one can tell you where this point of diminishing return is. You have to sort it through for yourself. No contact, low contact or reconfigured contact. But somewhere, sometime, you will need to let go of explaining yourself to get free.

Whether you are giving up being understood on a certain hot-button issue or need more of a relationship overhaul, that is up to you. Either way, giving up and letting it drop is hard. Mom may have limitations she cannot get past. Staying angry with her doesn’t necessarily get you anywhere. It only keeps you stuck and feeling guilty. The positive grown-up thing to do is to accept the loss and give up wishing she was different. You can use that same energy to decide to be different yourself.

To find out if you suffer from the Good Daughter Syndrome – go here.

Raise Awareness. Tweet It Out.

There are are some things that don't get better just because you continue to try. Trying to get a mother's understanding when it isn't in the cards is one of those. Click To Tweet But what if you need your mother to understand that she is hurting you and she just can't give you that one? Click To Tweet Unconsciously, you blame yourself and stay tied to a mother who can't truly empathize with you falsely thinking if you could only get it right then mom will understand and accept you. Click To Tweet You were marked with your mother's pain. You don't have to pass that mark on to your daughter. Click To Tweet

 

 

 

Audio

DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE "GOOD DAUGHTER" SYNDROME?

Do you have a Narcissistic or Difficult Mother?
Are you the "Good Daughter"? The Rebel? or The Lucky One?
Take the quiz and find out!

Take the quiz!

 

DO YOU WANT TO FEEL CLOSER TO YOUR DAUGHTER AND RAISE HER SELF ESTEEM – 3 HOW TO STEPS

Do You Want To Feel Closer To Your Daughter And Raise Her Self-Esteem?
3 Easy “How-To” Steps...
That Work Like Magic!

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This is how we rise.

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